


I just gotta get home

by seratonation



Series: We'll fall until we're free [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captivity, Community: hc_bingo, Escape, Hulk level violence, M/M, Other, Science Boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2013-08-30
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:51:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/pseuds/seratonation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Clint pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his palm and tried to clean it up some but every touch was agony, and for nothing. The blood was everywhere and it wouldn't stop. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I just gotta get home

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Stevie for reading this over <33
> 
> For the Hurt/Comfort prompt: [Captivity](http://themadwritings.livejournal.com/51369.html)
> 
> Title from Bigger Than Us by White Lies.

The guard pushed Clint roughly into the cell and Clint stumbled and fell. He got up just as the door was quickly shut and locked. 

“Yeah, thanks!” he yelled after the retreating guard, wrapping his hands around the bars, “It’s not like I was going to try and get away on this leg!”

He lowered himself onto the ground and extended his injured leg in front of him. The bastards had shot him and tore his thigh open, and it was still bleeding. He pulled the sleeve of his sweater over his palm and tried to clean it up some but every touch was agony, and for nothing. The blood was everywhere and it wouldn't stop. 

For the first time he realised he wasn’t alone in this cage. The other occupant crouched down to his level, and looked Clint straight in the eyes.

“Take it off,” he said, and when Clint didn’t move, he continued, “the sweater.”

Clint hesitated but he was starting to feel light headed so he pulled the sweater off as instructed. 

“Now give me your t-shirt,” the man said, and handed him back the sweater, “and keep this, you’ll need it.”

He switched the sweater for the t-shirt and started to methodically rip it into ribbons. Clint sucked in a breath but didn't say anything. That was his favourite t-shirt.

“Why are you doing this?” Clint asked instead, watching the man pull the material from his pants away from the wound and then wrap the newly made ribbons around his leg in a makeshift bandage.

“I need your help,” the man said, eyes focused on the job, “and I need you to be alive.”

“How convenient for me,” Clint said, sarcastically.

“I’m Bruce,” the man said, tying the bandages to secure them in place. 

“You can call me Hawkeye,” Clint said.

“Hawkeye,” Bruce said, “you’re going to help me break out.”

“What? And how do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, but I just helped you, maybe even saved your life-”

“But I didn’t ask for your help-”

“And I’m asking now,” Bruce interrupted, “please, help us.”

“Us?” 

“I have a friend,” Bruce said, “but they’re holding him somewhere else, I can’t get him out alone.”

“And how do you plan on getting out of here at all?” 

Bruce hesitated. He looked down the hallway to make sure the guard was well away before turning back towards Clint. “I can break us out,” he said.

Clint looked from him and back to the bars. “There's no lock on the door, and the thing is made of metal all the way around, how exactly do you plan on breaking out?”

“It’s a bit complicated.”

“So uncomplicate it.”

Bruce hesitated again but took a step back, and then another. “I have to show you.” He took off his shirt. “You need to back away as far as you can. He answers to the Hulk, whatever he wants to do, don't try to stop him.”

Clint wasn’t sure what to expect but when Bruce started to change, he couldn't stop his gaping. He was big and green, and still Bruce under it all. The monster roared but didn't try to break out, which Clint was sure he could do if he wanted to.

“H-Hulk?” he tried, and hated himself for the stutter. 

The monster huffed at him and started to pace. 

“Hey, big guy,” he said, “I’m Clint, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Hawkeye,” the monster said. 

“Yeah,” Clint said, “I’m that too.”

“Hulk,” the Hulk said, gesturing at himself, “and Banner.”

“Banner, Banner, you mean Bruce?” Clint said. 

The monster grumbled softly and then started to shrink. The change to normal again wasn't any less fascinating. 

“You're the Hulk?” Clint asked, when Bruce was normal sized again, on his hands and knees his head hanging between his shoulders, “I’ve heard rumours but-”

“Yeah, he’s real,” Bruce said, slowly getting into a sitting position, “but he’s not dangerous.”

“And the other friend?” Clint asked, “is he dangerous?’ 

“No,” Bruce said, “he’s not doing too well, I’m worried if we don’t get out of here soon, they’re going to kill him.”

Clint nodded. “I think I can help you,” he looked around, “when?”

“A week from now,” Bruce said, “we’ll give your leg a chance to start healing, and we’ll go.”

As the days passed Clint got to know more about Bruce. He said that they’d had a lab in the forest where they experimented with things that society couldn't accept but needed to be done regardless. Clint listened in interest as Bruce talked about clean energy and about cell regeneration. They were pushing the boundaries of science as the world knew it, until they were captured, and their findings were used against them. 

“They can’t do much to me,” he said, “they haven’t figured out how to control him without knocking us out, but Tony is in real trouble-”

“How do you know this?” 

“The other guy and I have tried to escape before, but we were always recaptured before we could make it out,” he said, and clenched his hands into fists, “but I’ve seen him, I’ve seen what they’re doing to him-” 

“Hey it’s okay,” Clint said, “we’ll save him, we’ll make it out.”

When the time came, the Hulk broke through the bars as if they were made of wood instead of metal. Their guard reached for the alarm but the Hulk stopped him before he could warn the others, then he picked up Clint and put him on his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Clint said, as gently as he could, “let’s go find Tony.”

Clint held on as the Hulk barreled through walls, deeper into the facility. They didn't come across anyone else, until the Hulk broke down a door and stopped.

There was a man in the room, hanging up from a metal frame, with wires coming out of a hole in his chest. He was bloody and barely conscious, but he smiled when he saw the monster. “Hey big green, d'ya miss me?”

The Hulk roared and tore the metal frame apart, until Tony fell to his hands and knees, but when the Hulk came to rip the wires out he stopped him with one hand over a massive knuckle. “No no no, I think we’ll need Bruce for this.” The Hulk huffed at him, almost a sigh, and picked Clint up and placed him in front of Tony. “Hawkeye help.”

Clint shifted uncomfortably before crouching down to Tony's level. Despite his state the other man raised an eyebrow. “Hawkeye?” 

“Yeah,” Clint said defiantly, putting his hands on Tony's shoulders, helping him upright, “Now, less snark more science, what do you need?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “I need you to reach in and pull the wires out, gently, but before you start I need you to get that glowing thing, so that when all the wires are out, the thing goes in.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Clint said, hobbling to the small round glowing machine. 

“Good,” he said, “because if you fail I die.”

Clint smiled, despite himself. “No pressure.”

Tony smiled back at him. “Exactly.”

The Hulk gave a low growl behind them. 

“Yeah,” Tony said, grabbing for Clint’s shoulder as the last wire came out, “almost there.”

Clint pushed the circular thing into Tony’s chest and Tony put a hand over his and twisted till the thing clicked into place. 

He took a deep shuddering breath and stood up straight. “Let’s go big guy,” Tony said, “what’s the holdup?” 

The Hulk only bared his teeth at Tony and then picked them both up as if they were nothing but rag dolls. He put Clint back on his shoulder and cradled Tony in one arm before turning around and going back the way they had come. 

Once they got back to the cages Clint and Bruce had been held in, Clint directed the Hulk and, even though it took a couple more wall smashes, they made it out.

By now the sirens had started, and as they ran out into the cold air the sound echoed in the darkness. The guards of the facility were close behind so the Hulk kept running. “Hulk, hey!” Clint called, “stop, let me down.”

“Are you nuts?” Tony called up to him.

“I don't know what you’re fighting is like,” Clint said, “but between me and him, we can take them, they can’t gas us this far and Bruce said his skin is impenetrable-”

“You can barely stand on your own-”

“I can handle it!” 

The Hulk suddenly stopped. He put both Tony and Clint on a branch high above the ground, out of harms way and turned around to face the assailants. It was one thing to be told how strong the Hulk was, and completely another to watch him take down 8 men like it was nothing, to shrug off bullets as if they were insects. 

When the last man was down, silence fell over the forest, only disturbed by the Hulks heavy breathing. 

“We have to get going,” Tony said, “hey, you wanna help us down?” Then he turned to Clint, “You alright?” 

“That’s- that’s something.” 

“Yeah,” Tony said, letting the Hulk pick him out of the tree, “come on, we can talk about it later, they’re probably sending more.”

“I think I’ll be alright here-”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tony said, holding a hand out for him, “come on, we’re not far now.”

Clint took Tony’s hand and let himself be lowered back onto Hulk’s shoulder.

The Hulk moved fast, and before long they were standing in front of a cliff-face. “You gotta be kidding me,” Clint said. 

Tony gave him a sideways look, and lowered himself to the ground. He touched a part of the rock that looked exactly like the rest, but after a pause, the stone shuddered and a piece of it moved aside, creating a large doorway, big enough for the Hulk to walk through. 

He let Clint down and then fell to his hands and knees, shrinking. Tony was by his side in an instant. 

“Tony?” Bruce looked up and held on to Tony’s shoulder.

“I’m right here,” Tony said, as the door started to shut behind them, “It’s alright, we did it.”

“How-”

“Your boy here helped, we were outside by the time they caught up, the other guy took care of them-”

“Are you okay, I remember wires-” His hand moved to Tony’s chest, to the glowing circle that Clint had helped put in.

“I’m fine,” Tony said, putting a hand over Bruce’s, “what about you, did they-”

“They couldn't-” And Bruce was now smiling, “every time they tried he’d come out, they were trying, but-” he closed his eyes and shook his head, “we did it?”

“We did it.”

Clint cleared his throat because it looked like they’d momentarily forgotten about him. “I think I might go now.”

“No,” Bruce said, getting up, “Stay, rest, eat, let your leg heal.”

“I can’t,” he said, “you guys obviously have something going on.”

Tony smirked. “Stay or don’t stay,” he said, “but Bruce is the only doctor I’d let near me, and we have more food than we know what to do with.”

“You’ve been gone for who knows how long,” Clint said, “how is that even possible?”

“The place is self sustaining,” Bruce said, “between the two of us we made it work.”

“It’s not like we were going to spend time farming,” Tony said, then lifted his head to the ceiling, “Jarvis?” 

“Good afternoon sir, and welcome back,” the ceiling replied, “it is a pleasure to hear your voice again.”

Tony grinned. “Same to you buddy,” he said, “listen, give Hawkeye?” 

“Clint,” Clint said, “my real name is Clint.”

“Clint access to the living quarters will you?” 

“Of course sir,” Jarvis said, “Will that be all?” 

“That will be all,” Tony said, then turned to Clint, rocking on his heels, “welcome home, best if your first trip to the lab was under supervision.”

Clint smiled back. He found it was hard not to smile back at Tony. “Home?” 

“For as long as you want it,” Bruce said, “Come on, I’ll just get some proper clothes and we can show you around, I can even put that in a proper dressing for you, and antibiotics, we’ve got all the good stuff.” 

“You don't have to,” he said.

“It’ll help it heal,” Bruce said tiredly.

“I was hoping for sleep,” Tony said, pouting at Bruce.

“Food first, and medical, I need to make sure you’re really okay.”

“You know me-” Tony started.

“Exactly,” Bruce said. He took Tony’s hand and then put Clint’s arm around his shoulders. Tony rolled his eyes and took Clint’s other side. 

Days, weeks later, Clint will ask them why they helped them, and Bruce will look at him and say it was the same reason he helped them. “We help our own.”


End file.
